


Shades of Gray at Fifty

by Kiltedsquirrel



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Episode: s11e02 This, Episode: s11e03 Plus One, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Plot, Post-Episode: s11e02 This, Season/Series 11, Season/Series 11 Spoilers, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:24:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiltedsquirrel/pseuds/Kiltedsquirrel
Summary: Author's version of events from This and Plus One. Please note warnings for spoilers and erotica.If you are under the age of 49, please proceed with caution ;)





	1. Chapter 1

There were excuses to use. Distractions to be found.  
  
The house, ransacked by armed intruders, sat in disarray. It was her home too, no one would question that if they could see her lingering over the scene - broken banister and plaster dust like the bones and ashes of someone dear. The experience had attacked her at the roots. 

Could a house have a soul? Of course not. But being there, with him, made her the most aware of her own soul. And if that didn't qualify a home, she didn't know what else would.  
  
"Home sweet home...," Mulder murmured beside her. He was carrying the detached door handle and looking around for somewhere to put it that wasn't a busted shelf.  
  
Scully shuffled in small steps, ready to tumble at any moment. Even her hair seemed to drag across her shoulders. Drawers everywhere had been pulled out and half-emptied, contents spilling onto a floor already strewn with files and bullet shells. Her feet avoided a broken picture frame - The Lone Gunmen. This was how the Monopoly board looked whenever Mulder lost a game. The room was upended and all its pieces tossed around.  
  
"Improving that curb appeal will have to wait," he deadpanned as they surveyed the damage done to the living areas.  
  
Scully looked at him, blinking her eyes for the first time since crossing the threshold. He was hot and dishevelled, fingers jittery from the aftershock of feelings just like her own. His weight shifted from one stiff leg to the other. He looked ready to drop.  
  
They'd been shot at, accosted, set on the run, and then pursued in a deliberate campaign to snuff them out. Erika Price was determined to hit the delete key on both of them.  
  
It felt like she'd been gone a week and yet they returned without a bag or toothbrush between them. They'd passed a dozen McDonald's and returned hungry. Neither smelled like home anymore. And they sure as Hell didn't smell like warm California sun. Their grubby clothes were a cocktail of odors from graveyards, buses, dive bars and skyscrapers. She watched as Mulder smacked a fly away from the greasy sweat of his neck. Her form-fitting clothes made the grime feel even closer to her skin. Then there were her feet which had swollen from performing all but cartwheels in toe-squishing heels.  
  
Emotionally and physically she was wrung out. Home felt like a sanctuary. The turmoil, she rationalized, was temporary, and nothing a deep clean, local handyman, and trip to Ikea couldn't remedy. Apartments and offices had been violated before, and security and privacy were always tenuous. There was a lot of love lining the walls. A scratchy, rough around the edges place, but there was a cozy chaos to it. It wasn't white and clinical like the hospitals she'd worked in. Neither was it sparse or refined like the investment property she kept. Something about fleeing for her life with only pocket money from Skinner, brought back the meaning of home. The dish of sunflower seeds was still intact.  
  
Adrenaline was no longer at fever pitch. The hormones that flooded her system, which had made her ears sharp and eyes jump around, were normalizing. For the first time in days she wasn't flip-flopping between fight or flight responses. The primal centre responsible for survival was slowly reverting to a stand-by position allowing the equilibrium to reestablish itself.

Her aching body was crying out for food, sleep and a hot shower. But there was also a hard-coded instinct for something else. She felt Mulder's stare before she saw it. His eyes were dark and unmanaged, prying with a purpose and authority that caught her off guard. The sight of him pricked up all the little hairs on her neck. In the rapid changeover of hormones, the last of her energy needed to be discharged somewhere.  
  
It went into a kiss.  
  
Mulder's shoulders bowed forward and she met him on shaky legs and teetering tip-toes. She felt a hard hug, his arms enclosing her slim frame like a shelter. Lips, on top of hers, were warm and moody. A carpet of X-Files, nothing left in their stomachs, and muscles cramping. Scully felt the scrape of his stubbled cheek under her fingertips and realized she was holding on to him, guiding the stop and go of his mouth.  
  
She wanted to wave the white flag and surrender, defeated by the first few moments of a knockout kiss. They would end up on the floor, unable to stand firm. Maybe. It wouldn't be the first time.  
  
It was like running with her face to the wind: hair tangled, cheeks raw and eyes shimmering. It stole the breath right out of her and threatened to sweep her over the edge.  
  
Erika Price's praise was well-deserved - Mulder was a fighter. She could feel all the extra hits of his heart against her chest.  
  
A creak on the porch made them pull apart in a hurry.   
  
"Birds," rasped Mulder and stilled her gun. Slowly his hand slipped from her hip, but he kept his closeness. Scully put her weapon away with a sigh. The sound of his ragged breathing distracted her. Neither wanted to stare.

"Do you want to go first...or-or will I?" His voice was as gentle as his eyes. 

All her thoughts had been knocked down like skittles. "I don't have anything to say." The dryness in her throat made it sound harsher than she'd have liked.

His eyes shot away. "I was talking about the shower..."   
  
Her heart could beat all it wanted. The storm had passed and there was a new shoreline.  
  
There were excuses to use. Distractions to be found. A case around the corner...


	2. Chapter 2

Little Judy threw fetching looks at him. "A handsome man," she said, preening herself. "All the trademarks of a leading man..."  
  
She looked delighted by their company. Her soppy eyes, fluffy hair and ditsy, nervous gestures were endearing to Mulder. He was first to smile, and Scully's lips tagged along with it.  
  
Judy was an actress. She'd never played the role of a villain in her life, or so she claimed. Her hospital room was feathered with Hangman games. Some fluttered in a draft that swept from nowhere like an evil breath stirring the air. One game she was right in the middle of playing.  
  
"I play telepathically," she divulged.  
  
He exchanged a look with Scully. She had a belted blazer, bombshell hair, and a 'I'm not buying it' eyebrow.  
  
Mulder couldn't see many personal items in the room. There were no family photographs, certainly not of 'player 2' - her mysterious twin brother who she hissed was an insufferable jerk.  
  
Her exhibition of Hangman games was the only remarkable feature in an otherwise barren space. The drawings were fastened to the wall with tape; pins and staples weren't permitted. It was a reminder that there was another side to little Judy. Mulder's brows furrowed, the games resembled an achievement gallery. Except it wasn't for pony riding or tap class. They were surrounded by dead stickmen.  
  
"You'd make beautiful babies," Judy gushed to him, still  behaving like he was an A-List visitor.  
  
He heard Scully suck in a breath and felt his pulse respond.  
  
"Do you have pictures?" Judy couldn't keep her feet still despite sitting up in bed. They rubbed together like Dorothy clicking her ruby slippers.  
  
Mulder shook his head, his good-natured smile already long gone. He struggled to answer a damn question about William and was quick to shut down any potential conversation. There was a photograph of his son but it was lodged inside his wallet, buried below coffee loyalty cards and an out-of-date credit card. Not that anyone should derive that it was unimportant. After all, he didn't need to take his heart out of his chest and examine it to feel that it was something vital.  
  
He gave a sideways glance at Scully. She didn't have a hair out of place and was inspecting Judy's drawing pad like it was Einstein's Riddle. It was too good a show of not listening, and when he next saw her eyes they sparkled like frost.  
  
His gaze roved across the walls until one paper stood out glaringly. He unpeeled it from the display.  
  
"I don't know an Arkie Seavers," Judy protested as Mulder's hand flagged the incriminating drawing.   
  
Scully cleared her throat. "So this is just a coincidence?"   
  
Judy looked flustered, injured, and her lashes stopped flapping.  
  
"I don't know an Arkie Seavers," she repeated. "But she might..." Her voice was eerily calm as she signalled an empty seat.  
  
Mulder glanced at the vacant writing table and chair. His eyes looked for Scully - he couldn't digest this himself.   
  
There were three rolls of sticky tape on the desk. It was clear more Hangman games were planned. Judy's display would only grow bigger.


	3. Chapter 3

Later that night they waited outside the St. Rachel Motel. Mulder rang the doorbell again. They didn't have a reservation. And the manager didn't have two rooms.  
  
"We'll take it," he said when offered the last suite.   
  
Scully's eyes widened into silver quarters in the moonlight. It would be pretty, if she didn't look so hostile to the idea of them sharing. They'd been consorting in each other's rooms since Billy and Theresa went to star school. But now he watched as a person they just met consoled her with the reassurance of a pull-out sofa. Antarctica had felt warmer. He chewed his lip, thinking.  
  
That kiss. It had blindsighted him, leaving vibrations on his lips and in his thoughts. It put everything on a tilt so even his eyes kept rolling back to her. Distractions didn't help, all that hair lapping around the slopes of her neck and shoulders drew him back in. Her rounded lips and the buttons flaring over her breasts made his mouth wet. He slid on sunglasses time and again to conceal the helpless wander of his gaze.  
  
Mulder felt a shudder of guilt. His eyes raked so often it should have wrinkled her clothes by now. It was no wonder she was acting this strongly to them sharing a motel room. She was desperately uncomfortable. He could see it, sense it in her. His brow slumped and soft eyes shrunk.  
  
She was sending a message as clear as a lighthouse and he knew he needed to pull back or risk wrecking himself on the rocks.  
  
"I'm just trying to get some sleep," he murmured, placing a gentle finger on her elbow. It was sincere, he smothered a yawn behind his knuckles.  
  
"Glad to hear it." Her eyes still looked like lanterns. She insisted on collecting their bags from the car leaving him to wait on the key. He felt lousy and wrinkles hugged his eyes as he sagged against the office doorframe.  
  
With Scully, it was always best to show rather than chat. So he would give her the bed and all the space she needed. Meanwhile he would get himself in check, before he derailed things completely.  
  
"People in this town sure like word puzzles," Mulder  commented to the manager, gesturing the crossword book under her arm. As he figured, she didn't pick up on the strange reference but smiled anyway.  
  
"Keeps me alert at this time of night," she said while passing him the room key and some paperwork. "Fourteen down...six letters...means 'a kick in the teeth'?" she asked, her kind face looking thwarted.  
  
Mulder sighed, his eyes on Scully's pinched waist and high inch heels as she tugged at some luggage. "Rebuff," he answered.

Scully went to sleep and he locked the door of the bathroom behind him. The hot water dial was cranked up and he shed the clothes from his well-trained arms and legs. His reflection might have showed off a broad chest and strong back, but his aging joints were cracking like someone going through a bag of nuts. He sighed, feeling a little older these nights, and missing the times when it was the nights making him feel young. Rivulets raced down his long body, saturating skin and turning even the gray hair dark. The water was too hot and stung against his weary muscles, but it made him wake up, stand straighter. The case was in the back of his head, he drew a stickman on the fogged pane then smeared it clear again.  
  
He didn't soap and rinse. Sex washed through his thoughts.  
  
His erection was surfacing from the mist of steam at his waist. He fixed on nothing in particular, just the idea of finishing up, and maybe the hope of feeling lighter afterwards, less punished with desire. The water poured over his scalp and shoulders as he gasped at warm, wet air. His fist pulled and wrestled and made him crazy. But after a few minutes, his arousal stuck on a plateau. Release lay out of reach, beyond his fingers, like some forbidden cookie jar on a shelf. It pissed him off and he complained to a gallery of deities. His brow darkened and fingers choked tighter but it did him no service. He was going around in circles, getting lost in frustration and shower fog.

He was cursing the rotten passion when suddenly his brain sent a pop-up to his thought window. White, svelte legs hoisted in the air with polished toes pointing at the ceiling. Ruby places and female cries. His jaw spasmed and he instantly wasted semen across the stall floor. Knees dipping, he threw out a big palm to brace himself on the screen door. The sound of waterfalls in his ears echoed even as he dried.  
  
He got into bed. He got out of bed. Arkie Seavers was dead.


	4. Chapter 4

Chocolate pudding flew past her shoulder and splattered against the door.  
  
Judy gave a low chuckle of enjoyment.  
  
Darkness robbed Scully of her keenest sense leaving her to squint in the unlit room. Her mouth firmed. "I want you to behave yourself," she instructed, trying to send a message of authority.  
  
Another spoonful of pudding was catapulted in her direction. Then another. Both missed the target and dripped down the door.  
  
This was the other Judy, her alter ego - the second self. She sat in a chair with her legs apart and giddy knees bouncing. Wild eyes scoured Scully.  
  
"You just missed him," she purred - a cat getting its back scratched.  
  
"Who, Chucky?" asked Scully, looking quizzical. The nurses didn't mention anything about Judy's twin brother visiting. She assumed Mulder was with Chucky Poundstone now.  
  
"Your handsome partner," corrected Judy. She chewed on the words like it was a tasty morsel. A tan stocking was slumped around one ankle. "They say it's like riding a bicycle. You don't forget. But with him it was like riding a bike without the seat attachment..." She let out a bawdy cackle. There was chocolate pudding on her mouth and lipstick on her teeth.  
  
Scully pursed her lips against Judy. "Agent Mulder was not here at the hospital." Her cool tone took great effort, anger steamed her cheeks.

"How can you be so sure? You don't know the places he goes or the people he notices." There was a mocking smile on her painted mouth.

Scully buttoned away a number of choice responses. Her control wasn't quite equal to the task, but she wouldn't compromise herself any more than could be helped. She was already giving away telling signs of discomfort, or at least she assumed so from Judy's reactions and continued badgering.

It was clear Mulder had captured not only Judy's attention, but also her imagination. Looking around the hospital room at the woman's circumstances, Scully could see why she might practise escapism, and Mulder was exactly the right man to inspire fantasies. He hadn't lost his draw. His eyes and lips looked all the softer for his worn face and roughened body. He wore a suit well, and even dressed in black, he wouldn't blend into a crowd. His sanity at times may have been compromised, but never his attractiveness. She stilled her thoughts, lingering on dreams of Mulder wasn’t doing anything to harden her nerve. 

"Topsoil's looking a little shaky there, Jess Rabbit," said Judy as if on cue.  
  
Scully set her jaw. "I'm here to talk about the death of Ar --"  
  
"Man like that could sow a whole field. Even if the soil quality was particularly poor...but you'd know all about that." Judy tittered her delight.  
  
"Arkie Seavers," persisted Scully. She didn't want to absorb one word of Judy's poison, but she felt herself reacting, not to the vitriol itself, but to Judy's choice of it. It was as if she had a head-start on the playing board, giving Scully the unnerving feeling of  arriving late to the game. "Arkie was found hanged during the night," she continued.  
  
Judy shrugged so dramatically that her dress slipped down one shoulder. She looked bored, like a child fed-up with a toy. It got Scully wondering if Arkie himself had been the discarded play-thing. Of course she didn't know if that was true, but the idea alone bred a new fierceness in her.  
  
"When I spoke to Arkie yesterday, suicide couldn't have been farther from his thoughts."  
  
"People change their minds," said Judy petulantly.  
  
"Or did someone change it for him?" she asked quickly, her wits feeling sharper.  
  
"Are you accusing me, Agent Scully?"  
  
"Not at all," she said, all good-cop. "You're clearly incapacitated here, unequipped to execute anything on that big a level. Given all your limitations, I'm certain no one would consider you competent." Scully was catching up with the game and Judy didn't like that. She sucked her gums and glared as Scully stifled the satisfaction and pressed on.  
  
"Perhaps someone of your brother's position?" Scully was selecting her words carefully. "As a security guard, his unique access would make him a far likelier, more convincing perpetrator-- "  
  
"Chucky Poundstone is the devil's dim-witted disciple," spat Judy before nursing her ego with a spoonful of pudding.  
  
"You wouldn't credit him with that capability?"  
  
"I'd credit that twit Arkie before ringing out Chucky's praise. Even as kids he needed me for everything - he'd still be in the womb if I hadn't shown him the way out!"  
  
"Did you show him the way this time?"

Judy pointed her spoon. "Are you trying to trick me?"  
  
"I want the killings to stop," said Scully with a defiant stare.  
  
"You want to know why fairytales always finish with 'happily ever after'?" Judy's eyes bulged and her lips curled like a meal was being served up. "Because no one wants to be there at the end when the princesses go to seed."  
  
"You can't hurt me," said Scully, voice held steady. It effectively ended the conversation.  
  
"Nothing hurts like the truth," fleered Judy.  
  
Her laugh followed Scully as she left. A final splotch of pudding landed on the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Scully stared into the mirror, her thoughts on philosophy and religion mixing with anxiety and vanity. Her hair was set off by a white shirt, starch stiffened to eliminate its wrinkles. She frowned at a crease on her neck and tugged the crisp collar closer to her throat.  
  
Going a round with Judy Poundstone had shaken her up like a snowglobe. The nurses referred to her as 'Demon Judy' and while the derogatory name sat uncomfortably with her, Scully now had an insight into its genesis.  
  
Judy was relentless in her take-down with an almost greedy desire to hurt. She panted her amusement while painting Scully as a spinster with split-ends, and whose shrivelled heart was undeserving of the man she loved.  
  
But none of those things warranted the Demon tag. Scully was more disturbed by what informed the slurs, than the slurs themselves. Judy was prodigious in her ability to push a person's buttons, at times it bordered on unnatural. Did that suggest an external authority presiding over the crimes? Was Judy herself a victim, possibly even a host for a darker force? Scully couldn't accept that was possible, but she did believe Judy held a malign influence over the victims. Having experienced her wrath first hand, Scully didn't doubt the damage she could wreak on a more susceptible, vulnerable target.  
  
She could hear Mulder in the adjoining room. He was taking a call, likely from Arkie's ex-lawyer who was as tenacious as Mulder in his quest for answers. He treaded and talked on the other side of the wall, his voice slipping through spaces in the door. The sound of him made her skin shiver, which had nothing to do with nefarious forces, and everything to do with that kiss.  
  
The look in his eyes since left her weak. She was reminded every day of his bench-pressed muscles bundled around her and how unstoppable it all felt. It stirred older memories, ones she didn't want to consider in the light of day because they illuminated her feelings for him. 

The suspense of sex made her feel like a girl instead of a woman. She knew the anticipation well, had travelled the road before. In New Mexico, on the run, feeling him larger than life in the motel room. He seemed to fill whole doorways. She'd never known a person to keep their eyes open so long in the dark. The desire was claustrophobic. So she could forgive herself for ducking out on sharing a bed with him at this moment, because she remembered what happened when those particular flood gates opened.   
  
He was still on the phone. His voice fell soft in places and she reasoned he was attempting to placate Mr Cavalier. Then her brain tugged in a different direction as she realized Mulder could be talking to anyone. Just the thought made her ears prick and a faint flush colored her cheeks. A voice lurking inside her whispered words of doubt and fear, enough to shake the fingers tidying her hair. She wanted to summon her common sense, but she didn't want it to be blinkered. Scully nipped her lip and shook the idea free before it could lead her to more unpleasant places in her mind. The worst part was not knowing the origin of this sudden paranoia. Had she truly left Judy back at the hospital?  
  
Mulder knocked on the connecting door.

"Just a minute," she called out, giving a parting glance at her reflection.  
  
He walked in - socks and shirt-tails, bottle of suds. His buttons were undone at the neck, skin sunned from afternoons of drinking iced-tea on the porch. His bottom lip was still something to sigh over. 

"I found the evil twin," he announced before slouching against the console and taking a swig of beer. He ran a sweaty hand through his hair and Scully could guess Judy wasn't the only Poundstone to have ruffled some feathers.  
  
"Me too...possibly." She was loathe to misapply the simple label of 'evil' to the situation, but Judy had grinned like a cat in the birdhouse when prompted about Arkie's death. Scully really didn't know what to make of it all yet.  
  
"Well according to Chucky, this town needs cleaning up, and he's just the one to do it. This from a man who lives in a suffocating mess."  
  
She gathered from Mulder's tightly held jaw that Chucky's complaint wasn't about roadside litter. She nodded, recognizing a similar streak in Judy. "I see the same malevolent motivation in Judy. She has a reach that I can't explain, an administrator privy to a bird's eye view."

Mulder gave a grim nod. "There's evil in the air, Scully. The ritual creation of these Hangman drawings are designed to bring about specific results, I'm sure of it. Chucky has a matching set. They're using these games to direct harm like a voodoo doll. We need to find out what force they're summoning. I wouldn't rule out ghosts."

Scully's face lightened with a smile. She'd heard this song from him before. "Ghosts... voodoo... psychic attacks - all your favorite crayons out the box, Mulder."  
  
"You got my number," he smiled, with lips that had never been dry a day.  
  
They both paused, looking at the other breathe and smile. Scully stroked hair back from her neck and felt his eyes follow her fingers.

She sat on the bed, neatening her skirt over her knees. "Murder doesn't need ghouls," she reminded him.  
  
"But you agree Chuck and Judy are up to their necks?" 

Scully's quick, decisive nod surprised even herself. Instinctively she knew Judy was pulling the strings.  
  
"Maybe it's their counterparts wreaking havoc? I'm going to pay Chucky another call in the morning, perhaps find the virtuous version."  
  
"I can tell you right now, Mulder, there is only one Judy Poundstone and she is definitely not virtuous. I think she's a far better actress than we imagined. Perhaps even a brilliant con artist to boot. She has all the sweetness of a Bond villain..."  
  
Mulder looked vaguely surprised by the force of her words.

"...And I mean that from the bottom of my...dusty uterus," she finished.   
  
"Oh really?" he mouthed with a searching look.  
  
Scully perched one nylon knee on the other and folded her arms across her bust. "Apparently the ink's gone out of my pen..."

Mulder responded with a long, quiet look before shifting to sit with her on the mattress. She felt his weight added to the bed. It was a comforting, familiar presence, but it still made her heart tick louder.  
  
"The Nile will dry up before you, Scully," he said, with a smirk, a twinkle, and a hell of a lot of kindness.  
  
She allowed herself a smile, and slowly, her slender arms ungripped her chest. Tension and wrinkles softened like a bar of soap as she watched him smile back.  
  
They were in easy touching distance, but his fingers never left the glass neck of the bottle. There was a cotton scent from his work clothes and it mingled with the warm musk of his neck and the aroma of beer. His craggy good looks were weathered from a life spent hammering out his own path. There was something lawless to that, but also something very noble. He owned every wrinkle, had earned them,  although a few he said were her doing. He'd always smile if saying that, hooded eyes squinting after a career spent examining grainy, doctored pictures. Sharing a bed with him suddenly felt like the safest thing in the world, and previous reservations were beginning to feel trivial.

"Maybe we'd have better luck trading Poundstones," she suggested. She knew Judy might be more amenable to Mulder, even if it did play into her hands.  
  
Mulder gave his head a brisk shake. "I'm not letting that strange little... amorous... Rumplestiltskin anywhere near you."  
  
She pitched an interested eyebrow. "Think he'd spoil your chances?"  
  
Mulder angled himself closer. "I got chances?"  
  
He stared a moment too long and she gave him a playful slug on the shoulder. "Goodnight, Mulder."  
  
"Knock three times," he called over his shoulder as she saw him out.

Scully pressed the door closed with a smile which then slipped quickly from her lips. Not for the first time, a powerful thought entered her mind. It wasn't unfriendly, but nevertheless the idea made her swallow nervously and she frowned a dozen times over before finding sleep. She was always struck by how tender and thoughtful Mulder could be. She hoped to be kept surprised by it, and to marvel, because these were qualities that shouldn't be taken for granted. It reminded her that Mulder would have made a great daddy for someone. In fact, he still might. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Several nights passed and the case lay even heavier on her spirit. Scully tossed and turned. Thoughts moved in and out of her head like busses at a depot. It disturbed her sleep and she awoke to feelings of dread. This time Mulder wasn’t bed-side with a new alert, and while she was relieved there were no fresh deaths to report, she yearned for his presence all the same. There was no one else in the bedroom, and yet she felt shadow and silence touching her.  
  
Scully was instantly reminded of seeing her own doppelganger. It had slinked in and out of the crowd at Cavalier's place. She sat up straighter in bed, eyes doing a spot check on her weapon, and then the fringes of the room. There was nothing out of the ordinary, no irregularities, but she didn't feel reassured. Her breath was ragged in her throat and her stomach churned like she'd been on a long trip.  
  
Nothing was solved, not the murders, or the Poundstones' collusion in them. Now Dean Cavalier was dead. The man had lost his head quite literally in the hysteria.

But it wasn't just this case that was affecting her. The bed was comfortable and generously sized but every part she touched was cold and unfilled. She was longing for something that she was still afraid to dream of, hovering in mirrors and not seeing any answers reflected back. She'd given up William, and then Mulder, all for reasons that had felt strong and right at the time, but for which she suffered endlessly over.

Her mother was gone. Those warm, wizened hands wearing rings from her father were still. They couldn't comfort her tears or pray for her peace any longer. Scully was exhausted from asking God for the same one thing over and over. She confessed that once, and her mother, eyes bright with love, vowed to take over the hardest shifts. The devout Catholic even went underground, going to Poseidon for her daughter because, "no one can calm waters and ease storms like the God of the sea." Poseidon had helped bring home every Scully man. "Just don't tell Father Casey," she'd laughed through silvery tears.  
  
Scully wouldn't have thought it possible, but her mom's passing made the ache deepen for those other losses. It was only fitting she slept in black since she woke each day to grieve.  
  
Fears and wants grew stronger and took shape. Scully couldn't keep them in anymore. Her stomach started fluttering even before she decided to wake Mulder, as if her body already knew what it needed.

She scooted into the adjoining room, chastising herself for not doing a calmer job at walking.  
  
Her toes squirmed on the floor beside the pull-out. Just seeing him lying there, steady and strong, gave her some faith. She didn't feel brave, but neither would she shrink from Mulder.  
  
It took one more breath to gather herself. "Mulder?"


	7. Chapter 7

There was every color of playdoh on the table. They called it Plato because William used to mispronounce it that way. Small hands rolled it out into long, wriggly pieces then abandoned it in favor of the yard. A dog bounded after him. William was six and into experiments. He returned, brown hair and brown footprints.  
  
"My hippo-thought-amus failed."  
  
Mulder gave the fish a quick scoop of food then mopped his hands as a timer on the cluttered counter beeped.  
  
"Your hypothesis failed," Mulder corrected with a quick smile. He grabbed a warm bottle and dropped splashes of milk onto his wrist to test for temperature.  
  
"When you cut a worm in two, it don't make a second one," elucidated William.  
  
Mulder's head cranked. Each of William's hands displayed a dangling, severed tube of worm.  
  
"I thought I was doing the earth a favor," he complained. "I forget what part's the head." He thrust it closer.  
  
"Go-go show your mom," said Mulder, waving the boy along. He was not claiming that shit.  
  
Moments later he heard a rumble from upstairs. "William get it off the bed!"  
  
Sleep loosened its knot. The dream drained away. Reality restored itself in a series of blinks and twitches. The parted drapes allowed second-hand light from outside to streak across the bed. It skimmed across his arms and shoulders as he rolled over, highlighting edges of muscle and throwing seductive shadow.  
  
"Speak of the devil," he murmured to Scully.  
  
She was standing over him: slender neck, mournful eyes and silks of red hair and black nightclothes. Her chin dipped to her chest. "I can't sleep," she admitted, pale fingers on the edge of his pull-out bed. They started to tap like she was testing out an old typewriter.  
  
A question.  
A quick nod.  
Tingling skin.  
  
She rolled into the heat of his body and he closed the covers around them. The wrinkles of surprise faded from his face as familiarity settled. He'd held her like this dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. His eyes fell shut as the memories rumbled about inside him. It still came second nature to him - to wrap an arm, to slide a knee, to press his heart beat into her back.  
  
There was a scent on her neck which caused his chest to tighten and warm. While distinctly Scully, the recipe had been tweaked over the years. Different, but never bland. He savoured it. It wasn't his stomach that growled but someplace low in his throat.  
  
His hand, stationed on a neutral section of her stomach, hummed with tension. Idle fingers twitched, restless to travel, to go off track, to trespass.  
  
Mulder felt a sudden burst of clarity and reined in his wandering thoughts, refocusing on the moment at hand, and what she needed from him.   
  
"Thank you for sharing your...couch," Scully whispered.  
  
"Thank you for not insisting I wear pants."  
  
He felt laughter flitter down her spine, a vibration of amusement which made him smile into her hair.  
  
It was quiet in the room with only the rustle of bare limbs and black silk. It was an old conversation, like the wind saying hello to a leaf.  
  
"What's going to happen?" She started to ask, her words drying up in her throat.  
  
"What's going to happen when?"  
  
"When we're old?" She said.  
  
"We'll go to Florida," he answered, right off the bat as if it was the most obvious thing.  
  
"Florida?" It was the first time she was hearing about it. Her eyes searched over her shoulder for his face.  
  
"Sometimes when life hands you lemons, you have to go hunt oranges." He told her with a thoughtful half-smile.  
  
"I never had you down for Florida..."  
  
She sounded uneasy. Perhaps the idea was too much of a cliche, or maybe she was taken aback by his level of adulting and forward-planning.  
  
"Sunny tax haven?" she asked, outwardly turning it over. "I mean it does have advantageous health care options."  
  
"Florida is a cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle," he reminded.  
  
"Of course," she sighed, with a breath of relief, and sunk further into his chest.  
  
"We can still chase mysteries but in our golf carts." His toes brushed up and down her bare foot. He missed this: the pillow-talk, the dreaming together, watching her smile into a fist hold of bedsheets. "And if it turns out we do need to investigate gator-men, ghost pirates or the skunk-ape..." His mouth touched her ear. "...Then I promise...to always send you in first." He chuckled warm air down her neck.    
  
Scully's laugh fell short and Mulder felt his hand being nudged away from her stomach. Now he didn't know where to put it. Her shoulders felt suddenly stiff and angular too.  
  
"Scully?"  
  
"But what if you have a family by then?"  
  
Her question came out of nowhere - she ran a red with it and hit him head-on. His eyes shrunk into a grimace. It was a good thing he wasn't standing, because he would've needed to sit down. Her suggestion was unthinkable, even insulting given what they meant to each other. He shook his head on reflex even though she wasn't facing him.  
  
"You could meet someone...," she continued. "Get married...have kids." Her nose sounded a little stuffed. He could almost hear the fear and anxiety eating her up from the inside.  
  
"I never thought I'd be saying this, but you got me down that aisle fast, Scully," he said with a shaky smile.  
  
"I'm serious," she whispered. "There are still options for you. A homelife..."  
  
There were no options for Mulder, he'd built everything around her. The idea of sharing a life with someone else felt impossible. Besides, he wasn't changing a diaper on anyone else's baby. "Rivers don't run uphill," he said.  
  
"Mulder..." Her eyes shimmered, she wasn't going to let it drop.  
  
"What happens when I have to call you every night to hear your voice?" he asked across the pillow. "Tell you about a cloud I saw? Theory I got." He had more words to give but they kept getting lodged in his throat. She twisted in his arms to see him speak and while he welcomed the sight of her brilliant eyes, he also felt his guts revolve. "Check if my Tetanus shot is still good...or when Eugene Victor Tooms might reappear." Random sentiment was breaking loose. "Talk about the trees we planted...share pieces of memory." Mulder stared at her fluttering lashes and mustered a faint challenge. "Would it kill them as slow as it would us?"  
  
He felt like he was standing in the playing field and Scully was sitting in the bleachers. He'd turned in an emotional, scruffy performance but taken a swing at every burden she'd brought to bed. His eyes were on hers. They begged to ask 'did I do it? Is this ok?' But he was done talking.  
  
Her lips parted. He was watching them more than her eyes now. They grew in pretty flourishes as she smiled this way and that. Sweet one second, coy in the next. Another smile was big, its sister sexy. The lure became overwhelming.

She moaned and that's when Mulder registered they were kissing. Fast, hot mouths and scrambling hands. He had to draw his tongue behind his teeth just so she could fetch a breath.

Her black nightclothes lay on the floor like a shadow. She was nude and under him, calling the syllables of his name in twin pants, "Mul-der." It was an invitation.

Although not one he was in a position to accept. He felt strong, muscles pulled tight, and chest like granite. There was an excited sheen of sweat on his neck. But his dick, slumbered on, pale and soft against one thigh. Damn. He uncurled her fingers from the elastic of his shorts and put her wrists out of the way on a pillow. He held her, on his terms, dampening her skin with yet more kisses.

Once in a while, a man, particularly if he's of a vintage year, will draw the unlucky card in the deck. Go to Jail: Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Mulder knew this, and under different circumstances, might have accepted it, confessed it to her honestly. She was a medical doctor after all.  But having it happen in this instance made him feel cheated, and worse, panicked. Not that he was giving either of those emotions away.   
  
Her breast was in his mouth and she was moaning his name to the walls.   
  
These past few days he'd seen her uncharacteristically melancholic, vulnerable, and unsure of herself in a way which concerned him. Scully complained the case was getting under her skin, but there seemed to be a lot more disturbing her than the Poundstone 'Punch and Judy' show. She fretted the future and seemed to spiral with regret at times. Wounded eyes trusted him with the topics of beauty and babies, abandonment and retirement. They'd missed their son's whole childhood. He could pass them in the street and they wouldn't know any better. None of those clocks could be reset, and every night fresh tears dried on the pillow. So if she wanted to fuck, pitch her little hips up at him and dine-out on his dick, he was there for that. She wouldn't be left doubting how much he wanted her, not by the time he got through.

Mulder was on the edge, about to make love...without an erection. And one thing was clear - Scully could not find out.


	8. Chapter 8

She lulled in warm sleep beside him, a bedsheet wound around her curled shoulders. Shaded hair rested on a shadowed cheek. The small quakes of her chest were a reminder that she'd fallen asleep out of breath, and her body was only now recovering.  
  
Mulder stared at the ceiling. He flexed the fingers of one hand. Stiff and capable, they hadn't let him down. Scully dozed and his digits dried.  
  
Being there, having her writhe and whimper in his arms, boiled up all sorts of feelings. She'd asked for his whole body and he gave her half-promises of "soon...soon" while seducing her with his hand. He manoeuvred her, kept up the distractions and influences of thick, quickening fingers until broken sounds of orgasm were cried into his neck. Then he watched her fall asleep like it was a sunset. His heart, at least, was far from impotent.  
  
His eyes closed under a frown. His body - it used to be an annoying-as-hell car alarm. The slightest thing would set him off, day or night. His sensors were particularly volatile around Scully. There he would be: backward cap, eating a turkey sandwich before sun-up, dynamized after a stunning Solitaire victory, and burning to play with the box the kid came in. She'd jab him away with an elbow or foot and protest she had surgery in three hours. "Go for a run," her muffled pillow-voice would tell him. He could run five miles and still be back to catch her in the shower. Now he was in his late 50s with more stress than the average pre-retiree. And the blaring alarm sound was the panic in his own head.

Mulder knew this wasn't their last window to make love, but it didn't stop the idea from nudging its way into his head. Had he missed the golden chance? He wouldn't sleep a wink.  
   
They were back working together, and all those reasons for losing their hearts in the first place, got rewritten each day. Pointed fingers had been replaced with holding hands, and ugly silences swapped for lively banter. They were still in an emotional limbo, but increasingly he could see a way clear.  
  
He'd waited for a night like this, like Winter holds out for Spring. He monitored those slow, miniscule changes. The type that arrive at a frustrating pace and, equally, overnight.  
  
The relationship was fertile again. She'd asked for him, her face all eyes and knees parted. It made his palms sweat and breathing stall to remember. He started giving more looks towards her sleeping body. The sheets were tugged so close to her chin that it allowed his eyes to fall on bare ankles and gently painted toes. "Mm," he sighed and touched a finger to her hair - just the one, to feel it ski down the smooth strands. More cravings developed, small at first, then growing in influence.  

Mulder looked down his chest and past his navel. He allowed a restless hand to scavenge into his boxers in the chance there was something to pursue. Slowly, a thirst spread within him; the kind no water - however sweet - could quench.

He wanted it again, wanted to wrap her in his arms and feel that quickened pulse, to know that her heart was bursting along with his. Pricks and twitches now travelled out from his underwear, and his hand pounced on his cock before the feelings could escape.

Earlier, with Scully, his fingers had been gentle and caressing. Now, on himself, they were unforgiving, impatient to be ready. His fist was strong, and it took a while, but its dirty tugs put the drive back into his dick.  His hips thrust upwards as he managed to pull himself erect with frustrated moans and harder jerks. The effort made his chest flare and his teeth bared briefly at the last of the painful yanks. "Yes," he called, eyes sparking at the pay off.  
  
Grabbing a towel, Mulder dragged the coarse material over and across his point several times. It burned pleasurably and his hips pumped against it in renewed anticipation. For long minutes he indulged himself, guaranteeing his erection was nourished, and over-preparing his body until it broke in a fresh sweat.  
  
"Scully," he roused and peeled back the sheet. He kept up whispers while pecking kisses on her earrings. Blue eyes - ink colored in the midnight of the room - fluttered wide, and she gasped his name. He stacked his body on her, grunting arousal at the sweetly feminine shape below his ribs.   
   
Wanting to reach more of her, he slid them up the bed, helping her to her knees as he rose on his own. Both hands landed on her bare ass with a clap. Mulder needed it, and fast. The move was made moments later with him shoving a wall of weight behind his overcharged cock. She went still and he heard a few soft sobs familiar to any abrupt union between them. He eased, swore love, and arrived in her again.

They were experienced together, and he understood each nerve. Nothing in him hesitated, not one thrust. He was large, but he knew he could commit every inch. 

"Oh God, Mulder."

A guy in the next room turned up his game show. Buzzers, dings and winner's bells now accompanied their rushed buildup on the bed.

It was unashamedly brief.

His knees pummelled the mattress and she hung onto his neck, hair slipping about her nude shoulders.

She was soft. He probably told her that, it was likely one of the things he kept panting into her ear. His mind was mush, lost to the sensations of gentle skin, squashing heat and wet pleasure. His dick bulged with each trip between her slim legs.  
  
It turned crude and fevered between them. Her excited cries were brought on at double speed and her hair tipped down her spine as she arched. He caught a handful of red ends, squeezed the tresses as things got bumpy and tense - an airplane touching down. 

Every part of him wanted her, from body to mind, and from hardened shoulders to sperm smaller than a dot.

Scully was flushed and making vowel sounds to his chest, and he knew what was around the corner for her.   
  
Mulder's last burst of movement was just enough to thrill, and he hugged her narrow back as she trembled on the end of his cock.  
  
His hands flew to grip her rear and keep pale hips jammed against his groin - part of a deep instinct not to spill a drop. "Scully," he puffed, and scooped her up close as he reached his end. He finished with soft, saved-up kisses and a "stay, stay..."

 


	9. Chapter 9

Even looking at himself in foul bathroom light, it was the best he'd felt in ages. Mulder took a mouthful of water and smiled spontaneously. His body felt good - that need for an extra breath every few seconds and the hot scratches to his chest. The feeling was addictive. Being in bed with her again was addictive.  
  
Then he saw it, in the mirror. Or rather, he saw himself. Two impossible images were reflected back in the glass. His doppelganger stood lurking in the tub, a perfect replica in the same gray vest. Its blank stare, and the creepy crinkling sound of its fingers on the shower curtain, made him whip his gaze. It wasn't his imagination, or any trick, he was face to face with his paranormal duplicate.  
  
His stomach rolled over like a stunt car. Dashing to the bedroom, he hissed her awake, "Scully!"  
  
She was relaxed and sated, not inclined to open her eyes for long. "Mulder it's probably more afraid of you than you are of it. It'll climb back down the drain and be gone by morning." She nuzzled the pillow and called him back to bed.  
  
"Scully," he gritted as sweat trickled down his temples. "This was not a spider. I just saw it - my double - they're gunning for me now." He threw on clothes leaving half the buttons undone. 

Scully sat up, drawing a calming breath. "I know, I saw my own apparition earlier," she admitted with a sigh. "Mulder, we need to stay calm. These blooms of hysteria are only feeding it."

"Then they're targeting us both! You need to get up...get dressed...before they snap our necks!"

"Only if we give in to the fear."  
  
"Put a dimmer on that afterglow, Scully." He threw more looks over his shoulder and jerked his zip. "You need to get yourself to the hospital and stop Judy."  
  
"But, Mulder--"  
  
He was straight out of there.  
  
His car screeched from the parking lot, headlights burning a path in the dark. He gave hurried looks at the passenger seat, fearing the doppleganger might teleport in at any second and call shotgun. No way was Mulder going to let his double wrap him around a tree like Arkie. Half-expecting the steering wheel to be grabbed, he squeezed it until both hands turned white. The car roared and ploughed through a swarm of bugs.

But no copy of himself appeared. Mulder could only guess that it meant the eye had shifted onto Scully. It rattled his nerves but he fought the urge to turn back.

The memory of her, wearing nothing but a bedsheet, with long tousled hair, made him feel weak and strong in different places. He wished to Hell they were back home with that buffer of land between them and the outside world. Maybe it was all these doppelgangers voting for Trump.  
  
Mulder focused on getting to Chucky in time; there was a game of Hangman to abort.

It was both their necks on the line. If they didn't get to the bottom of this case tonight, they'd end up on the bottom of a rope tomorrow morning. 


	10. Chapter 10

"Gives new meaning to the phrase, 'beating yourself up,'" said Mulder with a wince. His brow was folded in wrinkles and his shirt gaped all the way to his navel.  
  
Scully wasn't going to indulge him. She recognized the faces he was pulling and knew he was angling for some unnecessary medical attention. Ordinarily she wouldn't hesitate, but tonight her hands were too unsteady to play doctor. "I still think Chucky whooped your ass and you're covering." It was meant as a tease but she couldn't match it with a smile. She felt too on edge, it was the first time seeing Mulder properly since...he'd been inside her. Her memory spasmed with snapshots of him sweat-streaked and rutting. It sent the documents in her hand fluttering and she put a clamp on the release of feelings before she lost total composure.  
  
He had that classic Mulder-look of having been fired off a magazine shoot and made to walk home. His shirt was half off his body and his hair was attractively dishevelled, but he appeared weathered, probably from riding his luck for so long.

The Poundstones were dead, each having played the other's name in a final jealous game of psychic Hangman.  
  
"No more sightings of your unholy twin?" he asked.  
  
Scully shook her head, unable to designate words to what she'd seen in the rear view mirror. "Shadow needs light to exist, stop feeding it power and it vanquishes. Whatever I saw in the car, it disappeared when confronted with reason and argument."  
  
His head canted. "You gave your spirit double a lecture? And it listened?"  
  
"She was naturally well-disposed to logic," said Scully with a note of approval for her doppleganger.  
  
Mulder didn't look convinced. "I'm sure she has both feet firmly on the ground...of Hell."  
  
"Either way, I don't think I'll be seeing her again."  
  
"Good," said Mulder, his voice softening to a whisper. "Because I'm not accepting imitations..."  
  
She heard his knees click - he was restless to move closer. And just like, desire flashed. Eyeing his scruffy hair and raw chest made it hard to hold on to her neutral smile. "Mulder you look like you've been chewed by fleas," she said, trying to downplay her body's reaction to him.  
  
Mulder fingered the irritations on his skin. "It wasn't my doppleganger that left the scratch marks...," he said with a stare.  
  
Scully turned her chin, shuffling case notes and trying to avoid her guilty, manicured nails. She'd initiated it: first seeking his bed, then his embrace, and lastly his rhythm. Mulder had provided comfort, warmth and intimacy. But he'd also dispensed something else, and it now leaked down one thigh. Her cheeks picked up more color.

His eyes hovered like he wasn't sure whether to land them on her lips or neckline. It made her skin run hot and she automatically adjusted her jacket only to find his gaze dipping to her breasts. Feelings of excitement and panic prickled up her spine. Her chest heaved with quickening breaths which only drew his eyes deeper.  
  
They spoke each other's name in the same moment.  
  
"Sorry," she said hoarsely and gestured for him to continue.  
  
Mulder edged nearer and his adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "So I was thinking maybe we could get a couple of hours in before check-out time..."  
  
It threw her off guard. She narrowed her eyes, trying to work out what she was hearing. Was Mulder asking her back to bed? Scully couldn't tell, but the glint in his eye made her stomach bubble. At least she could be sure she was dealing with the real Mulder and not some supernatural stand-in. He really hadn't planned anything better to say than ambiguously suggesting more sex. Boy did that ring true. It was Mulder all right.  
  
"I was just talking about getting some shut eye," he explained, either trying to ease her suspicions or limit the  potential for rejection.  
  
Scully drew her eyes away but he was still an assault on the senses. This time her nose wrinkled. Mulder smelled like her perfume, the sample lifted directly from her body. The scent had transferred like a vigorous wrist on the fragrance strip of a magazine. He'd rubbed at her hard, and his moans now echoed in her memory.  
  
"I'm glad to hear that, Mulder," she said, her smile like weak tea. She didn't know which path to take that could lead her out of this maze. Their relationship was in transition, much of it remained undiscussed. They'd reached a crossroads that wasn't even on the map. A midnight fling was one thing, a sexual excursion with him was another. She swallowed, helplessly imagining a next encounter.  
  
The case had only been closed five minutes, she wouldn't have expected him to switch off from it so quickly. Yet there he stood - watching her eyes, watching the empty bed behind her hips, acting more than ready to wash his hands of the investigation and set his attention to the two of them.  
  
"I guess I should hit the hay...," he said without budging one muscle. Rest, it would seem, was not the activity on Mulder's mind. He was procrastinating, likely in the hope she'd interrupt with something better to contribute.  
  
"Ok," was all she managed.  
  
He waited several beats before urging her further. "If you need anything...you just call me?" His gaze was stripping past barriers, breathing life back into those suppressed yearnings.  
  
"I can't imagine that I will," she said in a last ditch attempt to shut down the see-sawing feelings.  
  
She let him walk away, and after one final loaded look, the connecting door snapped shut. Scully was left with the space and seclusion she'd campaigned for, and to which Mulder had demonstrated nothing but respect. Yet her body sagged, unfulfilled, like she'd stayed awake until midnight on New Year's Eve but there were no fireworks.  
  
Television noise soon filtered through from his side of the suite. She tried to imagine what he was thinking. Was he on the pull-out, feeling the places they'd rolled in? Fragments of pleasure from darker hours of the night came back to her again. She remembered Mulder's excited heartbeat and his fingertips on her buttons. Her strength to refuse was vanishing. Scully swayed on her heels, because she knew, it was about to happen again.  
  
After all, it wasn't out of the realm of extreme possibility...

**Author's Note:**

> MS4 gave me writer's block but hopefully I've bounced back ok with these recent chapters. The final installment is progressing really well and should be posted soon. Many thanks to those of you following patiently, its been so encouraging.


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